Adelaide's Arts Festival has named David Sefton as artistic director for three years.

He will head up three festivals from 2013-2015. From next year, the Festival will be an annual event in Adelaide.

Sefton has spent the past decade as artistic director of the performing arts program at the University of California.

Former Adelaide Festival board member Frank Ford has welcomed the appointment.

He says Sefton's explorative nature will be an asset.

"He doesn't seem like what we call a 'shopping market' type of director, in which they go out and buy whatever is the latest fashionable thing around the world and compete with all the other international festivals," he said.

"It sounds like he has a much broader concept; stuff that is going to have a lasting impact on the cultural development.

"He's not going to just pick the most popular or the best pieces, he's going to pick ones that are going to stimulate us artistically and educate us and I think we have a very adventurous audience who will receive it as a challenge to their own minds to expand."

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